Toonami: Dead or Alive
by Swashbucklist
Summary: A casual chat about anime leads the host of Toonami down a grim train of thought.


Disclaimer: Original characters and universe are copyright Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco.

A/N: First thing's first: manners. With five Toonami stories down, I want to give a big thanks to everyone who has read any of my fanfics and, more significantly, left a review for them. Obsidian Productions is especially awesome. Sorry for taking so long to get back to writing them. I don't get much feedback, but all that I've received so far has been pretty great. Thanks for your time, thoughts, and compliments, everyone!

As for the story, this isn't the type of thing I usually write, but it was something I wanted to consider. And after pumping out all that action in Trapped in Hyperspace, it felt like a good idea to balance things out. So if you're still with me, how about letting me know what can be done better with this gunless, explosionless, punching-and-kickingless, chase sequenceless brand of narrative?

Alright, let's get this show on the road.

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><p><strong>Dead or Alive<strong>

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><p>TOM sat pensively on the bridge of the <em>Absolution<em> as he watched a seemingly endless field of stars gliding by. Normally, in the depths of outer space, he would be watching an actual starscape with a backdrop made up of limitless darkness. But right now the stars were fake. One of the holographic screens hovering over the bridge's computer hub was playing the ending credits from an anime that had just reached a tremendously poignant finale.

_This,_ TOM thought to himself, _is probably what if feels like to ascend to heaven. Pity on those who would argue; they don't know what they're missing._ He leaned his head on the back of his chair and would have sighed if he'd had lungs instead of mechanics. But he felt the sigh, so out it came via the universal voice frequency that all robots and AI presently communicated through. Over that same channel, a deep, melodious voice sang,

_"Everything is clearer now.  
><em>

"_Life is just a dream you know …_

"_That's never ending …_

"_I'm ascending."_

As the last few twangs of the song echoed away, TOM clasped his large hands behind his head and savored the bittersweet emotions that those angelic voices and final images never failed to instill in him.

"You haven't felt sad—the good kind of sad—until you've watched this show to its finish. Am I right?"

The screen reloaded to display Sara's holographic profile. "Noted. That is probably the most satisfying ending in anime history."

The Toonami host crossed his legs. "Just look who you're preaching to, a _host_ of kick-ass anime. Nothing beats _Cowboy Bebop._ Well, except maybe _Death Note_ or _Gurran Lagann._ Man, I wish we could show those three on Toonami. They beat the shit out of just about everything."

"The lead actor has such a terrific voice, don't you think?"

"_Oh_, yeah. Too bad we won't be hearing him anymore. At least not until one of us decides to re-watch the series. Again."

"I wouldn't mind seeing a continuation of the show itself."

"After the way it wrapped up so perfectly?" TOM scoffed gently. "Forget it. There's no second season in this one's future, Sara. That'd be the anime equivalent of blasphemy."

"I was actually thinking a prequel series might be a good idea. And if not, we can always watch _Big O_ to get the same fix. The aforementioned actor plays Roger Smith."

TOM waved his big hands in a "whoa, hold it" motion. "Whoa, hold it, you can't just name some other show he's done and take it as more Spike Spiegel. He was made for _Cowboy Bebop_ and _Cowboy Bebop_ alone. And to be perfectly blunt, the man's story is over. Roger Smith is a totally different person."

"I thought we were only discussing one person," Sara said flatly.

"Maybe you were, but I'm talking about the series. How its greatness is based on the efforts of a whole bunch of people, not just the one voice actor." He regained his relaxed posture. "Sure, the characters they create can't come to fruition until a voice actor brings them to life and, yeah, he does a great job with the roles he gets, but he doesn't run the whole show."

"I see what you're saying," Sara conceded. "But my thoughts _were_ only on the voice actor. I think he's very charismatic and Roger Smith is the closest I've heard to his Spike voice, seeing as how versatile he tends to be."

"The closest on Toonami at any rate," TOM said offhandedly.

"I admire the actor. I think he does great work. The only reason I may prefer to discuss real people instead of anime is that they're all works of fiction and the characters are just vessels for voices."

"Sure, I don't disagree there. But I like to think of characters as a little more than that. Their existences, make-believe though they may be, really inspire people, you know? If one of those characters dies in the show, the actor's still got opportunities for more roles." Something about the subject of this conversation was starting to tug at the corner of his mind, but he ignored it. "Seems we were on two different wavelengths. You were thinking of a talented VA while I was talking about how a fictional character's life ended up."

"Yet they are both remembered," Sara punctuated.

As soon as she said it, a question arose in the back of TOM's head. But for reasons he couldn't explain, he hesitated to ask it aloud: _Which one is more important to remember?_ He was pretty sure the answer was something like, "the one who's actually alive, dumbass." He kept it to himself. He sat back and hit a few buttons on his chair. He still wasn't sure what some of those buttons did.

"Careful, Tom, you're about to activate the self-destruct."

"_What!_"

"Kidding."

Pulling his hand back, the Toonami host stared with mock-distrust at the buttons. He looked up when an icon flashed in the bottom corner of Sara's screen. "However," she said, "I do have some upgrades and system scans to run. Let's put our conversation on hold, shall we?"

TOM, finding some buttons he was familiar with, had brought up some old image files on another screen and begun casually flicking his way through them, apparently to pass the time. "Yeah, go ahead. I'll keep myself occupied until you get back. By re-watching the whole series."

"I won't be quite that long."

Her image dissolved, leaving TOM alone on the bridge. He continued browsing through the files, which contained fan art that had been displayed on-air during recent Toonami broadcasts. One in particular had cropped up in his mind from something Sara had said a moment ago, but he still wasn't sure why it had gotten him thinking. Finding the image that had intrigued him, he leaned his chin on his fist and studied it.

The image wasn't one of the more well-drawn pictures out of the loads that had come in, but it struck a chord in his mind nonetheless. It was a sketch of his old unit, "TOM 1." The fan had drawn it (him?) as dead characters were represented in the _Dragonball Z_ universe, with angel wings and a halo. After a few seconds of contemplation, he at last came to realize why he had been bothered so much by a conversation about characters and voice actors. There were parallels with his own life.

_"... a totally different person._

He found that wasn't hard to, in a metaphorical sense, imagine his body as a character and his downloaded mind as a voice actor.

"So why _would_ that bug me ... It's not like it's weird or anything to change bodies like a VA changes roles."

But in the exchange, he himself had pointed out that characters only become something when an actor "brings them to life". He started thinking deeper, trying to remember what it had been like during his days in his old unit. He recalled being a little more brash and reckless, a tad more inclined to doing fun things than getting down to business. But was there something artificial about those recollections? Perhaps it was just his imagination, but reaching for his old memories as opposed to his post-dying ones felt like remembering a movie he'd seen online in poor quality as opposed to one he'd seen on a high-def TV. So what did that mean? That Short TOM had been a different consciousness in some way from Cool TOM? This was becoming a bothersome subject. Maybe it was just a case of the difference in sensory equipment between the units. Nevertheless ...

He pushed out of his chair and left the bridge. "Hey Clyde," he said to the floating camera. "Grab a toolbox and meet me on level AD-23. Got it?" Clyde obediently zipped off to carry out its mission while TOM proceeded to the aforementioned location.

It was a long walk from the bridge all the way back to the _Absolution_'s starboard engine. Coming out of the elevator, he stepped onto a rough metal surface made from dark beige floor panels, much like the rest of the ship. Gray walls and dim blue tubing composed the sides and overhead, but every color was so muted under dim yellow lighting that it all looked pretty monotonous (not that TOM had ever felt for a single moment that anything about the _Absolution_ was depressing). However, these details only colored the passage for about twenty feet beyond the elevator door, at which point they were replaced by shinier panels and slightly brighter light fixtures. None of those lights were on yet, though.

On this particular drop-off, the elevator doors directly faced the structure that connected the starboard engine to the ship's body. TOM started down the dim hallway, remembering how the older engine had needed to be amputated from his ship. Where he stood now was also the very last place Short TOM had ever stood with his own two feet. The little guy had made his last stand here.

_Dammit, why am I thinking of myself in third-person?_

Cool TOM stared up and down both ends of the passage, playing out the incident in his head. In the engine housing, Short TOM had fired off several shots before fleeing for the elevator. He had landed here, right where Cool TOM stood now, and blasted his attacker one last time. The kickback had thrown Short TOM back into the elevator. He had staggered up again only to see the enemy rushing in, invading the elevator with him, overwhelming him ...

Currently, TOM shook his head. He could replay the scene just fine, but was struggling with the baggage that should have come with it. He had felt a fear for his life and a sense of being overwhelmed by something he had just realized he couldn't fight, yet for some reason was having trouble feeling those emotions with the intensity he'd felt back then. Perhaps there was some kind of post-traumatic syndrome that prevented him from doing so, but he doubted that. That it had happened years ago wasn't the problem either. He couldn't help but cling to this crazy idea that being seconds away from death should be a fairly memorable event in one's life ... especially if you _actually _died.

Clyde interrupted his contemplation, buzzing up to him with a sealed toolbox clamped underneath its eyeball-shaped body. "Thanks, Clyde." TOM took the tool set. Because of the large amount of construction that was required to fix a new set of engines, most of the lighting and other minor systems hadn't been connected. Therefore, the insides of the Talon ST's remained fairly dark. He'd decided on that as a good excuse to come down here and look around ... make an attempt to reminisce ... to _feel_ something ... in a setting that should have meant something to him. But that wasn't happening. And that's what TOM had feared.

_Now is it just my overactive imagination, which has never really overacted before ... or did someone actually bite the dust here?_

He stood where he was, waiting for something to come to him. After a few minutes of playing statue, it did.

"Are you fixing anything in particular?" came Sara's voice.

TOM turned to Clyde, noticing that it was staring at him a bit more steadily, no doubt because Sara was directing some of her attention to its visual feed. The Clydes were her eyes on the ship. He thumbed over his shoulder into the dark.

"Yeah, um ... some of the lighting and other minor stuff hasn't been hooked up since the engines were installed. So I figured I'd better get that done. That way I'm not running around in the dark if an emergency sneaks up on us."

"Good idea," Sara said. "But, Tom, you've been standing there for an awfully long time. Is there something wrong?"

TOM sighed. He couldn't think of a reason _not_ to come clean. "Yeah, there kind of is. It hasn't been bothering me until, like, half an hour ago, but I was thinking about my old unit."

"That short one you were first activated with? What about it?"

Here was the awkward part. "I'm just not one hundred percent sure it was _me_ who was activated in it," he said hesitantly. "I mean, I've got all the right memories, but there's something detached about them. Like they're someone else's."

"It's possible that may be a result of being downloaded from one unit into another," Sara offered. "Have you considered that?"

"Yeah, maybe," TOM admitted. "Since I'm totally interfaced with this body, all the day-to-day stuff that happens to me seems more vivid than when I was in my old unit. All those past experiences are just recorded from it." He paused, then shook his head. "No, that's not good enough." He looked directly at the Clyde. "They're experiences, they can't just be recorded. They should be part of me. Are we both sure I was saved and transferred to this body, and that no one was in my old one when it got completely destroyed?"

And just like that, he had completed the picture in his head and knew exactly what to ask next.

"Hey Sara, tell me ..." He turned and stared through Clyde intently. "When my old unit got trashed, was there already another AI matrix waiting in this one?"

The silence from her seemed to go on for just a hair too long, but TOM waited patiently, knowing she had an answer. Finally, she responded: "I hate to tell you this, Tom, but ... I don't exactly know."

That wasn't what TOM had been hoping to hear. "You don't know? But ... you're an Advanced AI Matrix. You supervise and analyze every little thing that happens on this ship. And you initiated the transfer of my brain to begin with!" Before he could risk flying off the handle, although that had never been his style anyway, he paused and asked lightly, "Think you could elaborate?"

Sara contemplated where to begin. "In the event of such a loss," she said tentatively, "the crew member's AI matrix is immediately transferred to my personal database. When the next unit is activated, I download said matrix into it." She knew exactly what TOM would want to know next. "No doubt you're wondering about the 'factory settings', for lack of a better term, on the second unit."

"Nailed it," TOM confirmed.

"It's a tricky question. Every blank unit comes out of the construction facilities capable of supporting its own life, and the unit waiting to be activated already has the framework of an AI matrix waiting in its head to make the transition easier. But ... well ... this isn't the first time anyone's considered the life and death of automatons. This dilemma has been debated since the inception of Artificial Intelligences, all the way through their development, production, and integration with common society. There has been research on the reactions of re-uploaded individuals."

"Really? Well, I've never heard of it."

"It's out there."

"Guess that's what I get for watching anime and playing games all the time." He made a sheepish gesture, then went back to being mostly serious. "At least I'm not alone in my emo. So, what did these guys figure out?"

"There was never a one hundred percent clear answer," she replied. "Let me put it this way: a blank unit is the equivalent of a human body that shows absolutely no brain activity and requires all of its bodily functions run by machines. It's an empty shell. So, the question is: is the soul already there, because the body is indeed alive, or does it come with the intelligence and identity of the AI matrix?"

"Yeah, that's what's keepin' me up at night."

"I'm afraid I truly don't know. I'm sorry, Tom."

TOM fell into a moody silence, studying the problem in his head as the shadowy hallway stretched out behind him like a deep, dark throat.

Sara couldn't decide what should be done next, other than keeping quiet and allowing him to think. She'd never seen him this contemplative or disturbed before, and that had her somewhat unnerved as well; TOM _never_ got disturbed. Not unless it was something he could get over right away (like that episode of _Cowboy Bebop_ that ended in a theme park). But this time he couldn't. And now they both felt themselves at a dead end.

TOM seemed to realize this, because he broke off from his train of thought and looked up at the Clyde. "You know what? This is driving my brain crazy. Let's just either figure it out later or forget about it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Besides, I'm never gonna solve any universal mysteries standing in some dark hallway in the bowels of a spaceship. Especially if I'm staring at a blank lens instead of your beautiful face."

Sara would have smiled if she'd had lips. But there was definitely a smile in her voice. "I'm glad to hear it. Brooding does not necessarily suit you."

"Not unless Mark Millar started writing my life," he jested, walking back to the elevator. As it ascended to the level the bridge was on, he continued, "I've had more than my share of the philosophical today."

"Me, too, and I have a sizable portion of my database dedicated to the storage of philosophical studies." She let their comfortable silence settle for a minute, wondering if she should let TOM know what was on her mind now. She eventually decided there was no harm in it. "Tom ..."

"Yeah?"

"There may be something I can find out for you."

"Oh really? Do tell."

"Maybe," she repeated for emphasis, then continued, "Within the AI Inception Companies, there are programs that specifically exist to analyze and condense a full AI matrix, pick it apart down to its very finest details. They're pretty powerful programs, needless to say."

"No kidding."

"Programs that complex and intelligent are necessary in order to design an AI in the first place."

"Yeah, yeah, I went to school." TOM reached his floor and started toward the prow of the ship. "What are you getting at?"

"As I've said already, we aren't the first to wonder over this subject. Hundreds of scientists have tackled it time and time again, but only the smartest and most well-funded have had access to these programs ... The programs that can tell whether a perished unit and the reincarnated unit are truly the same individual. The results are commonly known, but not the intimate details of the results."

TOM felt the earlier tendril of curiosity worming its way up again. He said cautiously, "But, Sara ... we don't work for an AI inception company." He quickly added, "And if they're anything like the ones I'm familiar with, like Aperture Science, that's a good thing."

"We don't work for them, but I can find my way in and retrieve the information that's been eating away at you."

That stopped him dead in his tracks. "Whoa. You're talking about breaking through the toughest security setup ever made, Sara. That's some pretty serious biz."

"Yes, and I'm fully capable of the task."

TOM started walking again, slower. "So you're telling me that you, an AI who runs a broadcast and exploration vessel that hosts television, is able to hack her way into the most layered, varied, and heavily-armed security systems in existence to retrieve delicate classified info." He shook his head in disbelief. "I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around this, Sara. How exactly does this work?"

Matter-of-factly, she explained, "One of the things that comes with being an Advanced AI Matrix is an impeccable sense of judgement. I fully comprehend and yield to the laws regarding classified documentation and I can, and will, perform any necessary damage control if there's a screw-up. So, naturally, I also know the circumstances under which it's acceptable bend or completely ignore those rules. For instance: when that documentation is important to someone close to me. Someone whom I know can be trusted with it."

"Those places are guarded by _teams_ of other high-functioning Advanced AI Matrices."

"I can out-think them."

Appearing on the bridge, he looked up and met Sara's soft gaze on one of the screens. Sara's eyes glowed softly and lines of code streamed by behind her transparent visage. Her eyes seemed to light the place up.

"And you'd do that for me."

"Yes. I would."

TOM sighed again, this time to alleviate the weight that had been gradually settling on his chest. "Alright, then. As long as you're absolutely sure you can do it, let's see what these guys are hiding."

"Okay. It will take a lot of energy and a little time. Twenty minutes, tops."

"Not several days? You can seriously get in and out that fast, like a ghost?"

"This isn't a heist movie, I don't exactly need to gather a crew and case the target."

"I was just thinking of how dangerous those other AI's might be."

"Shouldn't be a problem. I'll be right back."

"Wait, that's another movie thing—" TOM started, but her profile disappeared along with the rest of the screen setup. "... You're, uh ... not supposed to say that." Arrays of indicator lights went dark throughout the bridge and all six holographic windows changed to display the ship functions that were being shut down. They were the ones Sara couldn't concentrate on were she to focus on thinking her way through whatever dense wall of security those other AI's had in place.

TOM settled in for a wait. Not surprisingly, the bridge—if not the entire ship—felt much emptier. This was a whole different world from waiting for Sara to run diagnostics. Now he didn't feel like doing anything to pass the time, but decided to put on some Siamese Panda beats anyway, regardless of the mood. They had a good sound and always made him feel relaxed and energized in the same turn. Then he got another idea.

_I wonder if it would help._ Waking up a standby window, he punched into some saved videos on the Toonami server. He found the specific vid he was looking for and played it. A shorter, more awkwardly-proportioned version of himself sauntered on-screen and opened with a strong friendly, _"Heads-up."_

Cool TOM watched as Short TOM went through his video presentation, which was punctuated as usual with relevant snippets from the shows that had been aired during his run on Toonami. _"There's a new millennium on the way, and you've got a decision to make," _Short TOM continued in a carefree tone that bespoke his own casual brand of wisdom. _"You gonna be like everyone else, or are you gonna forge your own path, be your own person, an individual?"_ He rattled on as clips from _Dragonball Z,_ _Sailor Moon,_ and _ReBoot_ presented themselves._ "Webster's says individuality is a total character distinguishing an individual from others. __You know, somebody who stands out from the crowd, who's a little different. Could be hair, clothes, or just a different outlook._ _An individual takes responsibility for their actions and refuses to let anyone tell them what to do. Being yourself isn't easy, sometimes you gotta take some licks. But in the long run, it's the only thing that makes you who you are; don't ever give it up ... I'm outta here.__"_

TOM returned the monitor to standby and paced in front of his chair. He didn't feel any tighter kinship with the short automaton on record than he had before, even though he remembered delivering that speech while a Clyde recorded. The sage advice had worked to alleviate some of his stress, but still hadn't gone far in brightening his perspective. The bridge still had that cold, Sara-less feeling despite his efforts to kick himself into a more positive frame of mind. Clyde hovered, watching him return to his seat and drum his fingers on the button-speckled chair arms. Not ten seconds later, light swept back into the ship's previously lifeless electronics.

Sara's holographic face manifested on-screen, making TOM sit up immediately. "How'd it go?" he asked.

"I know this meant something to you, but I'm afraid not all mysteries lead to a satisfactory conclusion."

"Oh. Well, no big deal. I actually started to get more worried about whether you'd get back or not." With more curiosity than enthusiasm, he asked, "So what _did_ you find?"

"Everything they had."

All six holographic screens displayed over the control hub enlarged until their frames touched. Sara's face, along with all ship schematics and show scheduling, disappeared to be replaced by a series of detailed files that streamed across the hexagonal screen as she opened them too fast for the organic eye (or TOM's) to follow. It looked like there were thousands. She stopped on a few that portrayed the inside operations of an AI matrix. Each part of its brain was labeled and festooned with detailed information on its mental and psychological workings, which had been analyzed in every way possible. But it was only surface stuff. Each label dragged down to display more in-depth details. TOM was looking at the identities of individuals, mapped out before him in convenient chart form.

"Man, that's a load of info. Bitchin'"

"These would be the most telling results," Sara informed him. "There's too much information to fit here, but these are the AI matrices that had the smallest margin of difference between their first units and the ones they downloaded into. And when I say smallest margin, I mean hardly perceptible even to me."

"That's pretty serious," TOM commented.

"Yes. Here they are post-download."

More impossibly condensed information of the three AI matrices appeared on the _Absolution_'s screens. It all looked the same.

"Um, Sara ... I can't—"

"I can," she said. "And I can tell you that they're nearly identical. Some impressions were left on them in the aftermath of their 'dying' experience, not much more than a person's mind changes from hour to hour. But other than that, they appear to be the same individuals."

TOM placed his head in his hand with a grunt. "That doesn't move us forward very much."

"Didn't I tell you?" Sara replied, not unfriendly.

"Yeah, you did. Go ahead and close the window." As she did, he felt the despair of uncertainty making a comeback and attempted to fight it off with conversation. "Sure wish I could get a second opinion on it at least." He looked up at Sara. "I mean, _another_ second opinion. Y'know, from an expert."

"Curious you should say that ..."

"Well, you caught my interest yet again. What's up?"

"It's nothing official. I wasn't going to show it to you at all since it's a personal video diary, but it's from one of the leading minds behind AI inception."

"Well, I would love to see it if you feel okay sharing it."

Sara played the video. Immediately, TOM was met with the image of a line-faced man in his early fifties with wispy white hair and round glasses pushed up on his forehead.

"Whoa, that's Professor William Gill," TOM marveled.

"One of the leading minds."

"That's the genius who developed _you__._"

"Indeed."

The Professor seemed distracted for a moment before apparently deciding on what to say and looking straight at the camera. "Well ... we've been trying ... just, _forever_ to figure out what makes people tick," he said, disregarding any sophisticated shop talk for his private records. TOM listened carefully, but noticed that the time bar at the bottom of the video was already halfway through after only a little waiting and one sentence. "We've come a hell of a long distance, all the way to creating what used to be sci-fi. But personally, I think we've made all the leaps and bounds we're going to for a pretty long-ass time. We made life in machines, but honestly now, if this endeavor has any validity in the real world, if a living individual could be transplanted from one automaton body to another, if we are keeping them from dying by doing that ... then the law of applicability dictates that we could do the same thing with flesh-and-blood human beings. If that crap was true, we could keep people from dying. But it can't be done. Every project in the AI Transition Department is a foregone conclusion." He leaned in, reaching over the POV to shut off whatever device he was recording with, then casually added, "Sorry guys, but dead automatons are dead." The closeup of his chin went blank and Sara reappeared.

"There's your second opinion," she said gently. With due empathy, she continued, "I didn't think it would make you feel better, but you wanted it, so I obliged."

"I appreciate it, Sara." He walked over to the edge of the bridge and stared at the floor, putting his hands on his hips. "So we're now leaning toward the likelihood that there used to be another Toonami host between me and Moltar ... a totally different person from me ... who's gone." He threw a hand out dismissively. "Poor guy never had a eulogy or ... whatever would be appropriate." He paused to contemplate just how much deeper this had gone from what he'd believed thirty minutes ago. "And I'm living with a past that technically doesn't even belong to me. What do you think, Sara? Do I feel like a different person from when we first met and started hosting?"

Sara didn't answer immediately. Her blue face floated behind him amidst the glowing, humming electronics on board. "... Yes."

"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of."

"If it's any help," she consoled, "I think you're a perfect representative for the TOM whose past you're living with."

"Whole thing seems a bit more serious than that, Sara," TOM said a little heatedly, then sighed. "Apparently, a guy's dead and nobody knows what to do about it."

"Maybe you didn't hear what I said."

"I heard what you said." A thought struck him and he turned inquisitively. "But ... maybe I didn't hear what you meant."

"What I meant," she said understandingly, "is that with TOM dead, if our consciences are wrong and death truly is the case for him, I can't think of anyone better than you to carry on with his legacy. You do good by him. He fulfilled his job extremely well, he was likeable on and off the air, he brought quality television and some general wisdom to people, and ..." she trailed off, remembering the cold stab of fear she'd experienced when Short TOM had died. "... he was a hero. You are all that plus a bit more. And you know it, considering I just glanced at the video logs and saw that you watched his individuality speech."

"Yeah. He was good with those speeches. I think that job should end with him, make sure he's the last Toonami host to do that."

"Besides," Sara continued, "you're a copy of his entire identity. Everything that he was is in you. What better way to honor someone's memory than to continue living for them?"

"You know, I haven't really considered it from that angle ..." And now that he did, he realized it was a pretty decent way to honor the AI's who'd lost their lives ... pass the baton to the next runner. It still meant their deaths were downplayed a little too much for comfort, but they sure as hell weren't forgotten. As he drew his conclusions, TOM felt his depression slowly begin to evaporate. It lingered for a while, but this time the weight on his chest continued to let up until it was gone completely. It was a pretty good feeling; it certainly put him in the mood for music. "Then I'll keep on doing good by him," he said to Sara. "And hey, I was listening to some Siamese Panda beats earlier. Mind putting those back on? Fresh Flannel."

"My favorite song by them." The smile was back in her voice.

"And, Sara?" Her holographic head tilted as if she were raising an eyebrow. Funny how some things could be communicated without a changeable face. "Thanks."

"My pleasure, Tom," she responded earnestly. "My pleasure."

* * *

><p>AN: Well, I'm not as proud of this story as some of my others, but there it is. I may revise the whole thing someday. Let's hear what anyone thinks. I recommend checking out Siamese Panda on YouTube and downloading the album, particularly the song mentioned at the end there. It would have been a worthy alternative to play during Toonami's goodbye, but that it didn't exist yet.

Thanks for reading my sixth piece of Toonami fanfiction. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, the revolution has been televised.


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